The Land of Faerie
Chapter Three: A Day at Home
I woke up in a human size dog bed, naked except for a leather collar around my neck.
This was, to say the least, confusing. A dog bed was an odd place to be and the collar was an odd thing to be wearing, but I had to admit I felt great. I had slept deeply, the bed was comfortable, I was deeply rested and felt wide awake and almost hyperaware.
But where was I and how had I gotten here?
As my eyes roamed around the bedroom, odd patches of memory began to come back. A walk on the Strip. A poster. Breasts and eyes. A breathy, whispery voice. Deep breaths. Relaxation. Sleep . . . sleep . . . .
I jerked myself awake again. I realized now what had happened. I had been hypnotized—hypnotized without my knowledge or consent. Kidnaped by a strange woman who could control me with the merest hint of a suggestion. Used for her sexual pleasure. Collared like a house pet. Put to sleep naked in a dog bed.
I was outraged.
Outraged.
Well, actually, what I thought was that I ought to feel outraged.
It was outrageous. Wasn’t it? Yes, it was. I would feel outraged as soon as I thought about it some more. I really would. Right now I felt . . . wait, what? I felt . . . smug. Proud. I was a good subject. I was Kate’s pet. I went deep . . . deeper . . .
I dragged my mind back again. I had to get out of there, soon, before she woke up and began whispering to me again. If that happened I’d be lost. I saw my clothes across the room, a bit the worse for wear but I could arrange them almost properly. I would get up quietly, take my clothes in the other room, dress, and get out the door—I was sure I could walk somewhere I could find a taxi or call an Uber, get myself to the airport, get home one way or another.
And never.
Ever.
Come back to Las Vegas.
The bed was comfortable but I would get up any minute now and sneak out so quietly.
Then I realized I was wearing the collar. That would be an odd thing to be wearing on a morning in Las Vegas. I needed to unbuckle it quietly, then get up.
My fingers scrabbled for a buckle. There wasn’t one. There was no way to unfasten the collar. It was smooth, plain, all the way around. That was impossible—she’d gotten it on me somehow—but there was clearly, obviously, totally, unquestionably no way I could get the collar off.
I’d have to get it cut off.
Someone at a gas station or a hardware store would have a tool that could cut the leather. Okay, it would be a bit embarrassing to have to ask, but, after all, this was Las Vegas. Things like this probably happened all the time. And once the collar was gone, it was McCarran Airport and then home. I wouldn’t even turn on my phone—on the off chance that a breathy voice might call me and make some suggestions—not that I’d follow them but it would be embarrassing to both of us. She’d gotten the better of me. She’d won. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t enjoyed it but still I’d have to explain to her that it could never happen again. For some reason thinking that made me sad. But anyway, no phone calls. I knew! I wouldn’t answer calls from Las Vegas numbers.
Ever again.
The bed was very comfortable. My body was so relaxed. I was about to get out of bed. It was important to get out of bed. I would get out of bed in the next few minutes. It was important to focus on what I had to do. That would keep me from thinking back to yesterday. Yesterday, when I had wandered into her show. Yesterday, when I had heard her breathy voice telling the volunteers to breathe . . . deeply . . . and . . . relax. When they had . . . relaxed . . . in and out . . . sleepy . . . sleepy . . . .
Bright stars, floating against the darkness, graceful arcing trails left by airplanes in the sky, so dark and deep . . . .
Somewhere a bell was ringing. I woke again. This time my thoughts didn’t wander. I had things to do.
Naked, wearing only the collar, I hustled out to the kitchen. A large, complicated coffee machine on the counter attracted my attention. It had a laminated set of instructions next to it, with the heading HOW TO MAKE MY COFFEE. I followed them carefully, and the machine belched out a cup of coffee. It smelled really good, but it was not for me. I put a saucer on top of the cup to keep it warm and—still naked and collared—walked back to the bedroom, past my dog bed, and up to the head of the king-sized bed.
She was there stretching languorously, clad in a few wisps of silk and lace, with a sleep mask over her eyes. Without removing it, she pointed to the bedside table. I put the coffee there. Then she pointed to the floor. I knelt by the bed. After a couple of tries, her hand encountered the cup. She took a sip, sighed, and pushed the mask up on her forehead.
“Not bad,” she said, smiling at me fondly. “Not bad at all. I may have to keep you.”
That should have alarmed me. I had just been thinking of escape. But it didn’t. It didn’t thrill me either. It really didn’t affect me one way or another, any more than hearing someone wonder aloud whether she would wear blue or green that day. It was her decision. If she wanted me, she’d keep me. If she didn’t, she’d send me away. I had nothing to say about it. Right now, it was my job to listen carefully and do exactly what she told me.
She finished her coffee and handed me the cup. “Here are your chores,” she said, and handed me also a sheet of paper. It looked like the kind of chore list everyone makes for a day off:
DRY CLEANER
GROCERIES (see list)
HOME DEPOT (refill propane)
etc.
“The car keys and the instructions are in the kitchen,” she said. Then she snapped her fingers. “Off you,” she said. “Now!”
I now remember every detail of the hours I spent doing her chores. It’s a very good memory. There was nothing particularly special about the chores themselves. The instructions told me where to find the drycleaner, the Albertson’s, the Whole Food Market, the Home Depot, the CVS. I found the items she needed easily and quickly—and that helps explains why it’s a good memory. We all have to do these chores every week. They are mostly a drag. We have other things we’d rather be doing; or we run out of time and have to do them late at night or get up early, or we aren’t paying attention and we have to go back a second or even a third time. We can’t find a convenient parking place, we have to wait too long in line, the lady ahead of us in line is annoying, the clerk is slow, etc etc etc. Anyway, we are aware that this is not where we’d choose to be, that this is not what we’d want to be doing.
There was none of that. I had no feelings about the chores except the purest concentration on what needed to be done. I shopped with skill—my attention never wavered. I found the addresses easily—there were no other thoughts to confuse me. I toted the garments, and the bags, and the propane tank, easily. I didn’t forget a single item I was supposed to get; they were fixed in my brain as firmly as my own name. Parking wasn’t hard; it was just necessary. Waiting in line wasn’t annoying; I had nowhere else to be. It didn’t feel sexy; it didn’t feel involuntary; it didn’t feel at all. It just was; and it was all there was until it was done.
In that same blank state I drove home, unloaded the car, put the dry-cleaning items in her bedroom closet, unpacked the groceries, and carried the propane tank out to the grill. It didn’t occur to me to wonder where she was. But as soon as the work was done I found myself standing, almost at attention, in the quiet kitchen, like a robot that had been switched off.
Then I heard her voice. “Out here by the pool, Dane!”
She was reclining on a pool chair. Her bathing suit was barely there; by contrast, her breasts were very much present. They drew my gaze. “Bad boy, I’m up here!” she said.
Shame-faced, I raised my gaze to meet hers. But I could see she wasn’t nettled. She thought it was funny.
“I think you’ve earned a dip,” she said. “Put on your suit.”
She handed me the smallest Speedo I had ever seen. I must have looked at it skeptically (did I mention that I lived at that time in the Midwest?), so she snapped her fingers and said, “Dane, you’d better hurry up. Haven’t you noticed how hot it’s gotten? It must be 120 degrees—no, 130! Get into your suit—no, DON’T rip your clothes, take them off carefully, you can do this with great skill in just a few seconds, that’s right, hotter, oh my God you’re going to fry—get the suit off—now, in the pool!”
The water closed over me and I sighed with relief. Another second and I was sure my flesh would have burst into flame. I’d never known it got so hot, even in Las Vegas. Luckily the pool water was comfortable. I surfaced to find her laughing down at me.
“Good boy,” she said. “Now get out and towel off—now! Hurry up!”
Reluctantly, I climbed out of the pool and took the bath towel she offered. The heat had passed for some reason. “That’s better,” she said. “It’s not so hot now, is it? In fact, it’s cooled off quite a lot—the temperature is dropping, 60 degrees—50—40, oh my, it’s below freezing, you are all wet, you have no clothes on, here, dry off, take this towel.”
I was shivering so hard my teeth were chattering; I took the towel, wrapped it around me, and started to run inside, where I might be warmer. Then her voice said,
“FREEZE!”
I couldn’t move a muscle. She was looking up at me laughing again. “Dane, when I snap you will forget all about the cold, you will sit down next to me and listen to what I have to say. One—two—THREE!”
I sat at her feet.
“Yesterday you told me the story of your life,” she said. “Today I will tell you the story of mine.”
For the next hour I listened in silence, utterly concentrated on her words. She told me that ever since she was a little girl, she had known there was something special about her. As an adult, she had gone to a palm-reader for a fortune; the old woman had looked into her palm, then pushed it shut. She shook her head, said one word—“Wechselkind!”—and disappeared behind the curtain. “Wechselkind” is German for “changeling”—a Faerie child deposited into a cradle to replace the human baby stolen by faeries. And when she learned that, she felt as if someone she had never met had suddenly called her by a name she never knew. She had always felt like a changeling.
Her parents were quite ordinary, kind, but limited people. She was a beautiful baby, then an enchanting child, then a seductive woman. Even when very young she could tell that something about her made other people want to do things for her—even want to obey her. In school, boys would offer her their ice-cream if she would sit by them. After a while, she began demanding the ice-cream and refusing to give anything for it; they still fought to give it to her (once literally, when two little boys came to blows over the right to give her their dessert; she decided not to allow that to happen again—it attracted attention). Boys came to her door to walk her to school and carry her books. She allowed it, but changed the lucky boy every few days. When she got into junior high, high-school boys in their cars would stop to offer her a ride; once, walking to school with a male classmate, she had hopped into an older boy’s car without a word, leaving the other boy to carry her books alone. When he got to school, he sought her out, gave her her books, and asked if he could walk her home.
It wasn’t just boys. She was a natural alpha. Other girls wanted her advice. And the mean girls gave her a wide berth.
But like a lot of young people, she didn’t fully appreciate the person she had become. Most boys seemed too easy; she was drawn to those who could resist, and that led her into some relationships that were uneasy, explosive, and even abusive. Boys who wanted to dominate her could not succeed for long, and when they felt control slipping away they would become angry and panicked. She didn’t fully understand, and she had gone through a series of bad relationships until, at the age of 20, she was recruited by the traveling hypnotist she had told the crowd about at her show.
Then, first as a subject and then as a hypnotist, she realized who she was.
I listened carefully. My mind was largely blank. Each word dropped into it like a rock into a still pond, and sank out of sight but very much present, unforgettable and immoveable. Her story became as real to me as my own.
I was not the first susceptible man to fall into her web. Every few months, another one came along. She was adept at spotting submissive men—even men who did not themselves know they were submissive—who would give up their will at her command. She would enjoy them until they bored her, then send them off, usually with little memory of how they had spent their time with her.
Then she told me I was not just another submissive she had snared.
I was different. It wasn’t just that I was submissive. Submissive men are a dime a dozen. It was that I was—well—a great Dane. Strong. Fierce. Utterly loyal. Protective. I would give my life to protect my alpha, and she was born to be that alpha. In fact, she’d known me before either of us was born.
“Darling Dane, when I saw you it was like the moment with the palm-reader—as if someone had called me by a name I didn’t know I had. I could see that you were wandering the earth desperate to find an owner. That’s not so unusual—honestly, most men need a keeper and they are happier when they find one. But you—well, sweetheart, if I am the Faerie Princess then you are my human thrall; you were a village boy who wandered too far into the woods, I found you in the moonlight and stole your soul, made you serve me all your days. You are the one I’ve been looking for. You are Tam Lin.
”Listen carefully, Dane. As I speak, picture these in your mind. Everything I tell you becomes the truth as soon as I say it. You were once a dog and I was your owner. You were once a horse and I was your rider. You were a hawk and I was your falconer. You were a cobra and I was your charmer. You were a whale and I was your rider. You were Mowgli and I was Kaa. Year after year, generation after generation, I have pursued and caught you, and you have served me and I have eaten you and you have given yourself to me and today I own you and you serve me and only me.
“Nod your head.
She looked at me. I was nodding. Her words were trickling through my mind like water dripping slowly into an underground chamber. I was hers. That was now true, because she had said it. I was her thrall, her pet, her mount, her meal. That was now true. I was made to serve her all my days. That was now true.
She laughed. “Poor thing, you are pretty far gone, aren’t you?” She reached out and caressed my cheek. Then she touched my collar, and it came off at once. I could see an ordinary buckle on the side—the side I had been unable to budge. “I’ll keep this for you,” she said. “I’m going to have to go to the casino soon, and you need a good night’s sleep. But first, look at me, Dane—look into my eyes and go deeper. When I snap my fingers, you’re going to get up, go into the bedroom, take off your bathing suit, fold it carefully, and get into bed. When you are there, you will pick a point on the ceiling and stare at it. You won’t be able to look away. You will go deeper and deeper until I give you a command, and then you will obey. Do you understand? Nod your head.”
I nodded. She snapped.
Next thing I remember, I was in the big bed staring at the ceiling. I heard her enter, then climb into bed, but I could not look away from the point on the ceiling. Then she swam into view—those huge, liquid eyes, her lush mouth, those breasts . . . .
“Look at me,” she said. “Look into my eyes. You can’t look away. No matter what, you can’t look away.”
Then she mounted me. I was lying on my back, aroused, erect, unable to move, trapped by her eyes. She lowered herself onto me, holding me with her eyes, and began slowly to move up and down. She began to whisper, a whisper that seemed to sound directly inside my brain rather than in the air. “You are mine, Dane. You belong to me. You are my thrall. You don’t matter, Dane. Only I matter. You only exist if I tell you to exist. You have no thoughts, no desires, no will. My will is your will. You have given everything up to me. I own you. I can take you any way I want. Give it up to me now, Dane. You can’t look away. Give it up!”
It’s hard to imagine exactly how submissive I felt—pinned to the bed, with her eyes piercing me, unable to look away, unable to move, unable to speak, simply an instrument of her pleasure. I had no idea what was happening—I had no ideas. I was pure sensation. All thought was hers. I was disappearing into her eyes and her body and her will. The sensation was ecstatic.
“Give it up!” she said again. “Give everything up now, when I snap you will orgasm, male and female all at once, give it up, 3-2-1 NOW!”
I exploded. I came so hard I lost consciousness for a few seconds, and when I returned to myself I saw spots in front of my eyes. I could hear that she had orgasmed too; she slid off me and curled up next to me, her mouth near my ear. After a bit of heavy breathing, she said, “Now, Dane, you are going to drift off to sleep while I make a few changes in your subconscious mind. You’re sleepy, Dane, drifting, losing track, my voice takes you deeper . . . deeper . . . sleepy . . . sleep . . . .”
After a long blank time, I woke in the half-light of dawn. I was in the dog bed. My suitcase was next to me (I realized later she must have had it sent over from my hotel). I jumped out of bed, dressed quickly, and went to the front door. A car was waiting. It took me to the airport, where I caught the dawn flight home.
I tell it so quickly because all that happened without any conscious thought. I paced through it like a robot, knowing exactly what would happen next but not wondering why.
It wasn’t until I felt the plane home go wheels up that I began to return to something like my “normal” self—and I had one overwhelming thought:
What just happened to me?